


How To Tell If Your Guardian Angel Is Gay

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: But More Importantly- Crowley And Aziraphale Protecting The Community, Homophobia, M/M, Mistaken Identity, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Stealth Crossover, Tabloids, well pre- the main part at any rate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 01:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18768817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: It all happens because Crowley is in Aziraphale's part of town...





	How To Tell If Your Guardian Angel Is Gay

    “Come on, Jack, nobody _knows_ us here, we’re nobody. And if someone spotted us, we’re gone in two days!”

 

    It’s not so much the voice from down the alley that catches Crowley’s attention-- although it does. He feels a vague pang of sympathy, not so much for the American’s frustrated longing, but for the sibilant S. He’s had thousands of years to work at training himself out of his, more or less, compared to a human who sounds like he’s not even had thirty.

 

    It’s not so much the voice, as the delicious whiff of _wrongdoing_ in the air. Whatever the human in question wants, he’s ready to be _damned_ for it. A crime?

 

    He slinks closer. He’s just been out influencing some businessmen on a tear, setting up some things he hopes to see real big payoff from as the decade gets underway.

 

    Greed, he thinks. The seventies had been The Me Decade, sure, but the eighties… he thinks the eighties are going to be really good for Greed. Just a pity Hell’s still not very big picture.

 

    He can’t make out the response from this ‘Jack’, or what the first one says next, as they speak softly, but he comes around to find them at the corner of one of the nightclubs here in Aziraphale’s part of town.

 

    Not that Crowley had thought about it being Aziraphale’s part of town. He’d only thought, well… you want to find businessmen all loosened up and ready to accept a few more bad ideas, you found them drinking in a strip joint. The kind of place where Crowley puts on a suit that’s not quite his style and ages himself up a ways and keeps his hair just a little too sleek, and he blends right in.

 

    This isn’t a strip joint, though, no. This is a nice little stretch of places for men who have no interest in watching women take off their clothes. And, of course, for men who have no strong preferences either way.

 

    The two of them are huddled in close conference. Both tall and gangly and somewhere in their twenties, one with dark curls, a windbreaker half-zipped over a loud shirt, a pair of jeans that were trendy and are acceptable but will soon be passe… The other a blond mop, a sleeveless jumper over a blue shirt, a heavier jacket he’s just shrugged out of to offer his companion. Grey slacks and grey sneakers. The companion refuses, they whisper an argument over the jacket or the nightclub or something else, but the taste of impending sin on the air has changed, the winds of it have shifted. There’s not a hint of it coming from the pair he’d first started towards-- there’s an amazing wave of malicious intent from the alley across the street.

 

    Another pair of young men, angling fast towards the first, and Crowley isn’t in the business of stopping humans being violent towards each other, but…

 

    But this is Aziraphale’s part of town. And these are Aziraphale’s _kind_ , he protects their sort. But Aziraphale’s not here, and one of the angry young men has a bat. The other’s got a gun.

 

    Well, not a _real_ gun. Some bloody cobbled-together zip gun, some kind of toy. Every chance it’d do him more damage than whoever he pointed it at, but there’s no sense taking chances, could still put someone’s eye out.

 

    Crowley slides between the two pairs, before the second can accost the first.

 

    “Gentlemen. I wouldn’t.” He warns. He doesn’t plan on warning nicely twice. Behind him, the other pair shuffles back into the alley, which isn’t the best escape plan, but at least puts them more firmly behind him. They can escape once the interlopers are run off, after all.

 

    “Out of the way, mate, we don’t want you!” The boy with the bat says, swinging it from a safe distance as a show of bravado.

 

    “No, you do not.” He agrees with a fanged grin.

 

    “Fuck you!” The other boy shouts. Very original.

 

    “You’re not my type.” Crowley tilts his glasses down his nose. This is usually the point where the decision is made to not mug or otherwise accost him.

 

    Fucking druggies, though, he thinks, because they don’t even notice. The boy with the zip gun shoots him, somewhere in the ribcage, and it _bloody hurts_.

 

    “Oi! You don’t want to see _me_ bash back!” Crowley shouts. He brings his wings out without thinking about it. He hears the gasps from behind him. The problem with a spontaneous wing appearance is, if you don’t put in the forethought-- or if you don’t want to waste a miracle on it-- it’s hell on a good suit. Luckily, Crowley miracles all his suits, and this one _hadn’t_ been good. The second problem, of course, is that if he doesn’t concentrate on giving them the proper appearance, if he doesn’t spent the mental energy to ‘dye’ them, they come out looking rather…

 

    Well.

 

    Colorful. Not demonic. Not _cool_.

 

    The boy just shoots him again, frightened, and the other runs forward and takes a swing at one wing, which Crowley had _not_ anticipated.

 

    “Shit.” The boy with the bat drops it. “Shit, Gaz, those’re fuckin’, those’re _real_.”

 

    Crowley would like to have said ‘yes, they’re fucking real’, but mostly he just screams. Still, no way for mortal ears to discern between the demonic rage and fury of an imminent and deadly attack, and the kind of pain that would send any lesser entity to its knees like a sack of agonized potatoes, from a being which is only just holding it together. The zip gun had been an annoyance, the blow to his wing...

 

    “Shit.” The boy who is no longer the boy with the bat repeats. “Shit, Gaz, it’s a fuckin’ gay angel.”

 

    At rather long last, they run.

 

    “Would you mind…?” Crowley turns to the other pair, forming his words with great care and some difficulty. “Could you get me to an addressss just up this ssstreet here?”

 

    He collapses, but they catch him. He can’t put his wings away, when one of them is like it is. All he can do is cloak the three of them from mortal eyes for the walk to Aziraphale’s shop. He feels sick and woozy. Nothing’s damaged one of his wings in an age… it’s almost too much to bear, but he keeps the three of them hidden as the young men drag him along the walk.

 

    For a while, they’re silent, thinking only about the destination, until the silence breaks.

 

    “We’re carrying an _angel_.” One of the men hisses to the other, the blond one. Crowley hasn’t got the strength to correct him.

 

    “I don’t think I believe in angels.” The other hisses back.

 

    “Then what is he? Jack, he’s got _wings_. He saved our _lives_.”

 

    “He saved our lives. We could be suffering a, a mass hallucination.”

 

    “Can two people suffer a mass hallucination?”

 

    “A _shared_ hallucination, then. We had a traumatic experience, a stranger saved our lives, it stands to reason we’d, uh, we’d hallucinate.”

 

    “Those other guys saw them, too. The _sound_ the bat made--”

 

    “Stop it.” Jack says. They stop in front of Aziraphale’s shop, someone knocks.

 

    “We’re closed!” Aziraphale’s prim voice carries through the door.

 

    “The angel sent us here!” The blond one calls back.

 

    The door swings open almost immediately. Crowley lifts his head in time to see Aziraphale’s shocked expression, his little gasp.

 

    “Oh, my dear!” He steps out of the way, and as soon as the door is locked behind them, he steps forward and takes Crowley from between them, lifting him up effortlessly into his arms. Somewhere, the pair had lost the blond’s jacket, Crowley notices distantly. “Through here, dears.”

 

    They follow, and when Aziraphale lays Crowley down on the couch, mindful of his injured wing, the two young men fold themselves into the single armchair together, the blond one in his friend Jack’s lap.

 

    Well… ‘friend’ might be underselling it.

 

    Crowley can’t heal his own wings. The blow it is to him, he can’t summon that kind of energy. It’s like a pinched nerve, but for his entire essence. He can only do so much of anything. And invisibility is a lot easier than healing something delicate and important.

 

    Aziraphale focuses on the wounds from the zip gun first, drawing out the pellets, closing up the flesh. It’s easier and far less painful to treat. Even with a miracle, the wing is going to be an excruciating process… but it can’t stay as it is.

 

    “There, there, dear…” He strokes Crowley’s brow, taking his glasses away and resting a cool cloth over his eyes instead.

 

    “The angel sent us here.” The young man repeats.

 

    “Did _he_ tell you he was an angel?” Aziraphale asks.

 

    “Course I didn’t.” Crowley groans.

 

    “Well… _look_ at him. He’s got wings. He saved us.”

 

    Aziraphale hums. He focuses on Crowley’s wing. For a long moment, the whole world is agony, and then…

 

    And then, cool relief. Crowley folds both wings back in and goes limp on the couch.

 

    “He was... _created_ for a divine purpose. Of course, nowadays he mostly just gets into trouble and sleeps on my sofa.” Aziraphale tucks him in. “I’m sorry, would you boys like another chair? I’m being an awful host tonight.”

 

    “No.” Jack says. “We’re fine.”

 

    “Let me make everyone a nice cup of cocoa, you’ve had an awful fright out there.”

 

    “Sssomething stronger for me, angel.”

 

    “Tea?”

 

    Crowley makes a pitiful noise, and Aziraphale’s hand finds his hair, gentle.

 

    “Of course, my dear.” He says. “In a minute. Just rest.”

 

    “Are you my guardian angel?” The blond asks. “Are you gay because I’m gay?”

 

    “Don’t pester him just yet, please!” Aziraphale calls from the stairway. “Wing injuries are no laughing matter, he won’t be himself a while.”

 

    It’s quiet while he’s gone, but Crowley can feel the anxious vibrating from the pair.

 

    “I don’t believe in… any of this.” Jack says eventually, his voice muffled against the side of his companion’s head. “I don’t believe… angels, miracles, Catholic weirdness.”

 

    “We’re not Catholic.” Aziraphale says, reentering with a tray. “Far, far too old for that, anyway. And to answer your earlier question, people aren’t assigned individual guardian angels. An angel might be assigned to patrol at will doing and encouraging good. They might be told where to go, but often there’s no specifics given. And very few angels are what _they_ would call gay, but even fewer are heterosexual. It’s… complicated. Unless an angel has spent time on earth and decided to be one thing or another, all angels only have one sex, and it’s ‘angel’, you see. So the whole concept of sexuality is rather… if one even feels sexual feelings at all!”

 

    “But angels can be gay.” The blond presses, accepting a cup of cocoa. His companion does the same.

 

    Aziraphale lifts Crowley gently and deposits his head in his lap, settling under him and picking his own cocoa back up from the corner of his desk.

 

    “Yes. They can be.”

 

    “So… you-- so that means-- you can’t go to Hell for being gay.” He says cautiously.

 

    “Of course not, what a silly notion. Whoever said you could? No, no, I know, _everyone_. Well it’s utter rot, I should know. You’re fine, my dear, of course you are.”

 

    The blond rises from Jack’s lap and moves to look over Aziraphale’s shelves, letting out a whistle. “Wow, I guess you _would_ know.”

 

    There’s a faint scent of longing on the air. Even with his eyes closed, Crowley can all but see fingertips hovering near spines. Nothing covetous, just the desire to touch as much as to read.

 

    “So is… like… is any religion more _right_? Than the others?”

 

    “Not particularly. Certain sects are more… off, now and then, but basically it’s all the same to us. Current etiquette demands we treat polytheists as if they’re merely worshiping different facets of the Almighty separately, and are to be treated as valid.”

 

    “Oh.”

 

    “Sit down and finish your cocoa, and don’t touch anything.” Jack whines. “I would very much like… for this not to have happened, in the morning. So let’s get a start on that. Already have to spend tomorrow chasing, uh, chasing something _else_ I don’t believe in, so… so tonight I’d just, I’d really like to _rest_.”

 

    “I’ve got a room where you can sleep tonight, where you’ll be safe.” Aziraphale offers.

 

    Crowley’s surprised when _both_ young men simply agree to that. He’d have expected resistance from the skeptic. There are more questions about the nature of the divine, fading up the stairs, as Aziraphale gets them seen to.

 

    In Aziraphale’s absence, Crowley works on sitting himself up, though it’s something of an exhausting venture. Still, he manages to work himself into a casual-looking position by the time Aziraphale returns bearing a glass of wine.

 

    “What’ve you got for me?” He smiles. Aziraphale smiles back.

 

    “Chateau d’Yquem.” Aziraphale perches at his side, relaxing when Crowley takes the glass, hand untrembling.

 

    “Oh? What did I do to rate your Chateau d’Yquem?”

 

    “You know what you did. Thank you, my _dear_ boy. It must have been very near here, just outside my...” He gestures vaguely, to indicate the range at which he detects the kind of trouble he ought to interfere in.

 

    “Yeah, just past.” He takes a sip, feels it warm him. The pleasant little tingle of indulgence. “Join me in a glass, would you?”

 

    Aziraphale produces a second for himself, and the pleasant feeling doubles. Aziraphale indulging is almost as good as doing the indulging himself, he radiates such _pleasure_ in it, even in a little thing. And he’d been saving his Chateau d’Yquem since he’d acquired it in 1811…

 

    “Thank you, really.”

 

    “ _Don’t_ mention it. I mean it.”

 

    “It’s very good of you to have.”

 

    “Just doing my part as per the Arrangement.” Crowley blushes. “Couldn’t let that sort of thing happen so close to your doorstep, bad for business.”

 

    “For me, perhaps.”  


    “Yeah, well… but it’s _our_ business. That’s the point. The Arrangement.”

 

    “Still.” Aziraphale says, and he’s so near, and so warm, and his smile is so…

 

    It’s the sort of smile a demon could save a hundred lives for, bless his traitor heart. This demon, at any rate.

 

    “So you owe me one, really.” He coughs, looking away.

 

    “Of course I do.” Aziraphale’s hand closes over his arm, and Crowley is fireworks. “It was very brave of you. Your wing and all…”

 

    “Well…” He shrugs. There’s still a phantom twinge in the wing that’s not currently there, but what can he say? He’s a simple creature and likes his vanity flattered, and Aziraphale is so keen now to flatter it. To gaze at him in a way he can almost imagine is adoring…

 

    He can easily imagine it’s adoring.

 

    “It doesn’t still hurt, does it?”

 

    “ _Nah_. You took good care of me. Anyway, couldn’t swing for crap, so. You know. I’m made of much sterner stuff than these mortal hooligans. What’s a cricket bat going to do to _me_? Besides, now they’ll think any time they go out looking for easy prey, they might run into more than they bargained for. Think twice next time. Wish I’d incinerated that bat, though.”

 

    “Well, if you ever see them again.”

 

    “Incinerate more than a bat if I see them again making trouble for anyone. I mean-- as per the Arrangement. Since you don’t know what they look like. And why shouldn’t I? I mean, they attacked me, petty revenge, that’s demonic.”

 

    “Oh, very.”

 

    “Glad you agree. I’m a, you know, as demons go, I’m just… I think I’m a pretty good one.”

 

    “You _are_.” Aziraphale says, like he doesn’t mean a good demon, just good. But he didn’t say ‘good’ out loud, so it’s not like Crowley can complain about it. Anyway, the Chateau d’Yquem is very nice. “The boys are asleep, poor things. Exhausted by it all. But they’ll have sweet dreams tonight, at least.”

 

    “You just like the blond ‘cause he whistled at your books. And ‘cause he wears a sleeveless jumper.”

 

    “Oh, I do not.” He nudges at him, rolling his eyes. “They’re both very sweet, that’s all. Fell asleep curled up together holding hands, it’s the dearest thing.”

 

    _He likes the blond_ , a cruelly hopeful little voice pipes up in the back of Crowley’s head, _because he hisses a bit, too_.

 

\---/-/---

 

    “I brought you back a little something from America.” Crowley sing-songs, coming into the shop.

 

    “I don’t trust that tone.” Aziraphale sighs, but he comes around the counter and holds out his hand, and Crowley produces the tabloid with a flourish.

 

    “How To Tell If Your Guardian Angel Is Gay?” Aziraphale reads, outrage mounting with each word. “This is worse than The Sun!”

 

    “Is it, though?”

 

    “Well it’s certainly no better!” He huffs.

 

    “You don’t think it’s a little funny?”

 

    “I do not.”

 

    Crowley notices he retires to his back room armchair to read it anyway. He flips the sign to closed before moving to flop out on the couch to watch him. By the time he gets there, though, Aziraphale isn’t scowling at Sensation!, he’s… smiling?

 

    “You _do_ think it’s funny?”

 

    Aziraphale clears his throat. “ _This reporter’s encounter with the gay angel occurred in London. The angel had enormous wings in a rainbow of colors_.”

 

    “Yeah. Sounds like an angel.”

 

    “ _He wore a navy suit and appeared outside a well-known gay nightclub in a blaze of glory_. Crowley, it’s _you_.”

 

    “You never told them I wasn’t an angel?”

 

    “I had other priorities, and besides, I don’t think that poor boy would have taken well to the truth. So _Catholic_. You didn’t tell them yourself.”

 

    “Oh, this is bad. Somehow or other this is bad for me…”

 

    “Oh, do relax, dear boy. Who in Hell is going to read this rag?”

 

    “Ligur, maybe. They advertise X-Ray Specs on the back and he’d probably fall for it. Then again, last time he was up here, don’t think X-rays were a thing. So maybe no one. Anyway, doubt he’ll see any newsstands while he’s up here-- got him and Hastur on my calendar for next week, that’ll be a bloody headache, don’t know what they want from me now when I’ve been turning in my reports.”

 

    Aziraphale sets the tabloid aside, and comes over to wrap his arms around Crowley in an enveloping embrace.

 

    “No one but _me_ knows this was _you_.” He whispers, before letting him go. “And you did a marvelous job covering for me. And I do owe you, so I’m sure if it’s something truly terrible, you’ll call on me. And… I’ve a d’Auvenay you might like, if you’re sticking around today.”

 

    “Angel, I’d almost think-- With an offer like that on the table, how can I refuse? I’ll bring in dinner if you’ll have that wine waiting for me.”

 

    He picks up the tabloid first-- plenty of time to worry about dinner, after all-- and flips through with no particular interest, until a fragment of a sentence jumps out at him.

 

    _Definitely the first angel’s husband_ … well.

 

    Perhaps there’s hope for him yet. But surely they’ve plenty of time to worry about that as well.


End file.
